Top 100 Gordon Brown Quotes
#1. The doubling of oil prices ... is creating a more difficult environment in which to act.
Gordon Brown
#2. When things are difficult, you have to be sure of who you are and what you want to achieve.
Gordon Brown
#3. Our approach is to reject the old vicious circle of the '80s-rising debt, higher long-term interest rates, higher debt repayment costs, lower growth, higher unemployment, then enforced cuts in public spending. That was the old boom and bust.
Gordon Brown
#4. The motto of the old order in the City of London was, 'My word is my bond,' but the financial crisis revealed a culture quite alien to that heritage. The stewards of people's money were revealed to have been speculators with it.
Gordon Brown
#5. There are values far beyond those of contracts, markets and exchange
Gordon Brown
#6. Under this Government, Britain will not return to the boom and bust of the past.
Gordon Brown
#7. I never subscribed to what you might call the neo-Conservative position that somehow, at the barrel of a gun, overnight, liberty and democracy could be conjured up.
Gordon Brown
#8. The NHS cannot be privatised if that's not the will of the Scottish people, and the Scottish health service will have the funding that's necessary if that's also the will of the Scottish people.
Gordon Brown
#9. This is a Budget for Britain's future to secure fairness for each child and invest in every child
Gordon Brown
#10. Almost certainly, my ancestors had travelled by sea from Sweden to England in search of prosperity, and the evidence suggests they left Sweden around the ninth or 10th centuries.
Gordon Brown
#11. The extraordinary summer heatwave of 2003 in Europe resulted in over 35,000 extra deaths.
Gordon Brown
#12. I think people have got to understand when a murder is committed on British soil, when innocent people have been put at risk by the method that murder is committed then we expect authorities in other parts of the world to co-operate.
Gordon Brown
#13. We are entering an era in which national government, instead of directing, enables powerful regional and local initiatives to work, where Britain becomes as it should be - a Britain of nations and regions
Gordon Brown
#14. Making the desirable possible requires us to make the desirable popular, electable, credible, and something that people want to hold on to.
Gordon Brown
#15. Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of the Second World War could have been very different.
Gordon Brown
#16. 56,000 companies have already benefited from the schemes that we have brought in. If we have taken the advice of the Conservative Party, no money would have been used. As Barack Obama said only yesterday, doing nothing is not an option.
Gordon Brown
#17. A woman said to me, 'You're better than your successor.' She then said she's lived under 10 prime ministers, and each was worse than the last. That put me in my place.
Gordon Brown
#18. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him.
Gordon Brown
#19. I am happy for there to be a leadership contest. I think there should be
Gordon Brown
#21. I did maths for a year at university. I don't think I was very good at it. And some people would say it shows.
Gordon Brown
#22. My favourite sport at school was rugby. All sports are teamwork, but rugby particularly is about teamwork and I think teamwork is the essence of this.
Gordon Brown
#23. We've managed to find a way of making decisions that prevents conflict arising - there has been no war between European members at any point in the last 70 years.
Gordon Brown
#24. It will not be a surprise to you to learn I'm more interested in the future of the Arctic Circle than the future of the Arctic Monkeys.
Gordon Brown
#25. When I lost the sight of my eye and faced the prospect of going blind, my sight was saved by the NHS.
Gordon Brown
#26. What is gained by debt relief and aid can be lost if we don't get a proper trade agreement in Hong Kong,
Gordon Brown
#27. I believe there is a moral sense and a global ethic that commands attention from people of every religion and every faith, and people of no faith. But I think what's new is that we now have the capacity to communicate instantaneously across frontiers right across the world.
Gordon Brown
#28. I welcome the role that people of faith play in building Britain's future - and the Catholic communion in particular is to be congratulated for so often being the conscience of our country, for helping 'the least of these' even when bearing witness to the truth is hard or unpopular.
Gordon Brown
#29. If people are persuaded of the need for education and the need to invest in education, they're also persuaded of the need not to waste that investment by having low-quality education but to have high-quality education.
Gordon Brown
#30. Stability is necessary for our future economic success.
Gordon Brown
#31. Do you think that I or anybody else who cares about the NHS would stand by and do nothing if we thought the NHS was going to be privatised in Scotland and its funds were going to be cut? Would we stand back and do nothing without a fight? Of course not.
Gordon Brown
#32. You have to live in the future, not the past.
Gordon Brown
#33. Each year India and China produce four million graduates compared with just over 250,000 in Britain.
Gordon Brown
#34. I think it's important that people know who you are and ... can ask any questions they like about you.
Gordon Brown
#35. Boom and bust is a term that applied to the Conservative years and two of the worst recessions in history
Gordon Brown
#36. So another challenge for our generation is to create global institutions that reflect our ideas of fairness and responsibility, not the ideas that were the basis of the last stage of financial development over these recent years.
Gordon Brown
#37. I am a father with young kids, and you want to know the jobs in the future are going to be there.
Gordon Brown
#38. When people criticise you, you've got to listen to that criticism, and to learn from it, which I've tried to do.
Gordon Brown
#39. We must understand that the British public's relationship with Europe is - and always has been, the sporting arena aside - about the benefits we can achieve in jobs, security, and quality of life from membership and how these benefits outweigh any disadvantages.
Gordon Brown
#40. I am not going to make decisions based on barricades and blockades, nor am I going to make decisions based on the short-term volatility of the oil price.
Gordon Brown
#41. The way forward is for governments to consciously pursue monetary and fiscal stability through setting clear objectives, establishing proper rules, and requiring openness and transparency - the new rules of the game.
Gordon Brown
#42. Our common realm is not and cannot be stripped of values - I absolutely reject the idea that religion should somehow be tolerated but not encouraged in public life.
Gordon Brown
#43. In Britain, we are not a secular state as France is, or some other countries.
Gordon Brown
#44. No one should be held back from realising their potential by fears that they will not be able to afford to go to university or that they will graduate with unmanageable levels of debt.
Gordon Brown
#45. America knows it has got to deal with its deficit problems so that it, too, can promise it is making its proper and best contributions to the world economy.
Gordon Brown
#46. I understand that in the UK there have already been 10,000 complaints from viewers about these remarks, which people see, rightly, as offensive. I want Britain to be seen as a country of fairness and tolerance. Anything detracting from this I condemn.
Gordon Brown
#47. You can't just vote for yourself. All the time, you're thinking what sort of country, what world, what future?
Gordon Brown
#48. Pop Idol, X Factor, Fame Academy, there's so much talent out there. It's great to see people getting the chance to show their potential
Gordon Brown
#49. When you've got a society that is diverse, what happens is for a time, the issue is integrating your minorities into that society.
Gordon Brown
#50. I am not going to the House of Lords. Never. That's not who I am. That's not where I am.
Gordon Brown
#51. We've got to be explicit that the road to greater economic success does not lie in this cosy assumption that you can move from a single market through a single currency to harmonising all your taxes and then having a federal fiscal policy and then effectively having a federal State.
Gordon Brown
#52. The IIFA Weekend has my unprecedented support. The relationship between India and the UK is long standing and one we would like to keep developing forever.
Gordon Brown
#53. The growing evidence of climate change is forcing attention on carbon emissions and their reduction.
Gordon Brown
#54. Every country is going to have to face up to globalisation, but Scotland has got a unique capacity because of its history as part of a multinational state to help us deal with that problem.
Gordon Brown
#55. While you cannot deliver policies without principles, you cannot deliver principles without having power. You have quickly to move to a stage where, emphasising your principles, you build a programme, then call for popular support.
Gordon Brown
#57. I said that this would be a Budget based on prudence for a purpose and that guides us also in our approach to public spending.
Gordon Brown
#58. I will listen and I will learn. I will strive to meet people's aspirations. I want to lead a government humble enough to know its place - where I will always strive to be - and that is on people's side.
Gordon Brown
#59. In the weeks and months ahead, my task is to show I have the new ideas, the vision and the experience to earn the trust of the British people.
Gordon Brown
#60. Politics seems much less important today. When you see your young daughter smiling as she was, and moving around, it's a superb feeling.
Gordon Brown
#61. Our equality bill is specifically designed to protect religion and belief on exactly the same terms as race or gender or sexuality.
Gordon Brown
#62. The place of cycling in our society is set to grow, and I am committed to doing everything possible to encourage that.
Gordon Brown
#63. To make Europe more effective is a worthwhile objective. To make Europe less important in your calculations is a big mistake.
Gordon Brown
#64. Sometimes it takes a crisis for people to agree that what is obvious and should have been done years ago, can no longer be postponed ... We must create a new international financial architecture for the global age.
Gordon Brown
#65. We are being tough in saying it is a duty on the unemployed in future not only to be available for work - and not to shirk work - but also to get the skills for work. That is a new duty we are introducing.
Gordon Brown
#66. My first rule - the golden rule - ensures that over the economic cycle the Government will borrow only to invest, and that current spending will be met from taxation.
Gordon Brown
#67. I believe that our vote is both a public duty and a sacred trust.
Gordon Brown
#68. The British economy of the future must be built not on the shifting sands of boom and bust, but on the bedrock of prudent and wise economic management for the long term. It is only these firm foundations that we can raise Britain's underlying economic performance.
Gordon Brown
#69. In just 25 years the glaciers in the Himalayas which provide water for three-quarters of a billion people could disappear entirely.
Gordon Brown
#70. Indeed, Britain was set to repeat the old, familiar cycle of boom and bust. Since then, we have created and rigorously adhered to a new framework of modern economic management
Gordon Brown
#71. I had to deal with terrorist finance. And we had to, if you like, ensure that the accounts of people who were guilty of terrorist finance or using their accounts for terrorist finance were closed down. So we had to do asset freezing.
Gordon Brown
#72. In 2005 we have a once in a generation opportunity to deliver a modern Marshall plan for the developing world.
Gordon Brown
#73. Our ability to connect as a nation with other nations around the world is enhanced dramatically by the Internet.
Gordon Brown
#74. Britain should be the world's number one center for genetic and stem cell research, building on our world leading regulatory regime in the area.
Gordon Brown
#75. Britain and Pakistan will jointly fight the menace of terrorism .. Both the countries are facing a common threat of terrorism and we know that Pakistan is even more committed to fighting this menace
Gordon Brown
#76. We should demonstrate that in war, under Churchill and Lloyd George, and in peace, Britain always was, already is, and can continue to be a leader.
Gordon Brown
#77. Foreign policy can no longer be the province of just a few elites.
Gordon Brown
#78. Tony Blair is the best friend I've had in politics.
Gordon Brown
#79. When the strong help the weak, it makes us all stronger
Gordon Brown
#80. You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on, and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken.
Gordon Brown
#81. The next election will be a flyweight versus a heavyweight. However much the right hon. Gentleman (David Cameron) may dance around the ring beforehand, at some point, he will come within the reach of a big clunking fist.
Gordon Brown
#82. I'm all for greater co-operation between Europe and America because I think that sometimes we've missed out on the benefits that transatlantic trade could give both continents, and I've been pressing this since 1997.
Gordon Brown
#83. Nigel Farage wanted to privatise the health service. Nigel Farage does not believe in the values we believe in for our public services.
Gordon Brown
#84. Britain was set to repeat the boom-bust cycle that led to 15 per cent. interest rates for one whole year in the early 1990s.
Gordon Brown
#87. There's no point dwelling on the worst things people have said - there's a job to do.
Gordon Brown
#88. Our mission is, in truth, historic and world changing - to build, over the next fifty years and beyond, a global low carbon economy. And it is not overdramatic to say that the character and course of the coming century will be set by how we measure up to this challenge
Gordon Brown
#89. People have now got the ability to speak to each other across continents: to join with each other in communities that are not based simply on territory, streets, but networks; and you've got the possibility of people building alliances right across the world.
Gordon Brown
#90. What has become clear is that Britain cannot trust the Conservatives to run the economy. Everyone knows that I'm all in favour of apprenticeships, but let me tell you this is no time for a novice.
Gordon Brown
#91. The House has noticed the Prime Minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks, from Stalin to Mr. Bean.
Gordon Brown
#92. For centuries, individuals have been learning how to live with their next-door neighbours.
Gordon Brown
#93. Cowdenbeath Football Club have always been at the centre of Cowdenbeath - literally and in every aspect of community life.
Gordon Brown
#94. On this day I remember words that have stayed with me since my childhood and which matter a great deal to me today, my school motto: "I will try my outmost". This is my promise to all of the people of Britain and now let the work of change begin.
Gordon Brown
#95. We can find common qualities and common values that have made Britain the country it is. Our belief in tolerance and liberty which shines through British history. Our commitment to fairness, fair play and civic duty.
Gordon Brown
#96. To be a teacher you must be a prophet - because you are trying to prepare people for a world thirty to fifty years into the future.
Gordon Brown
#97. When something really matters, you should never give up or give in.
Gordon Brown
#98. Our new economic approach is rooted in ideas which stress the importance of macro-economics, post neo-classical endogenous growth theory and the symbiotic relationships between growth and investment, and people and infrastructure.
Gordon Brown
#100. Collective European Union action could mean no hiding places for evaders, no safe haven for tax avoiders, and no treasure islands for money launderers.
Gordon Brown
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